I love Soviet-era commieblock areas and buildings both in former USSR and in Eastern Europe. Highway ("Magistraal" in Estonian) takes me through such areas and some nice blocks are located right next to them. I am happy that I can enjoy these buildings and areas in my hometown Tallinn every day. (In case you wanted to see shopping mall Magistral in Mustamäe, please go to http://www.magistral.ee.)

Sunday, 18 October 2015

384 Berlin 19.04.2014, part 2 of 2

Walking in such an area was my first ever contact with typical living districts in Germany. It was architecturally really interesting.

That's quite Scandinavian. For me, it looks like a prison.

Here, unexpectedly, I encountered one of the most amazing and beautiful buildings I have ever seen. I took many photos of it and not only in that day. By the style, typical 1980's.

It was actually huge but it wasn't easy to grasp from street level because it was narrower in higher levels. Now I thought: if you want to build something massive in a quiet and low-rise district so that people would notice this minimally, how to do it? Just imagine how much would you see when you look up -- you are like at the tip of a cone where the cone is the visibility area. Put these cones moving on the streets and build the building there where the cones don't reach or reach relatively little. That's how you will get the maximum volume of the building you can build.

This building is just masterpiece.

And on top of all that (pun intended), it was built over the street.

This was in or on the way to Steglitz.

This could be anywhere in Eastern Europe. Despite the simplicity, it was the first time I saw exactly this design.